While You Were Dark
by pseudonymitous
Summary: A series of one-shots based on what was happening in everyone else's life while Annie was on her mission.
1. Chapter 1

Auggie couldn't bring himself to give the order.

_Siri, call Danielle. _That was all he needed to say, but his voice was shaking. There was nothing he couldn't deal with, no lie he couldn't bring himself to tell. Until this.

This was everything Danielle ever feared. The reason she once kicked Annie out of her house. Annie was the girls' godmother, he realized with a pang in his chest. There was nothing worse than having to tell someone their loved ones weren't coming back. And he would know.

When Helen died, Auggie had been tasked with telling her family. He'd called the Hansons of Rightmire Road in Boston, Massachusetts, and informed them that their Helen, their only daughter, was dead. The difference was, then he'd believed it. Then, it wasn't a lie. Then, he'd taken a week off and gone to be with them in person. Her mother had sobbed into his shirt and her dad had embraced him with shaky hands and watery eyes. He'd mourned and grieved with them. It ranked as one of the worst days of his life.

Auggie had agonized about the idea of leaving this news via voicemail, and was flooded with relief when that became a non-issue. Even still, the words were bitter in his mouth. Auggie actually liked Danielle, and he knew she'd reciprocated. She wasn't always the most cheerful, or the most cohesive when it came to Annie, but she'd always been sweet to Auggie.

She was screaming as if she'd been stabbed, and Auggie heard the phone hit the floor. He grimaced, muscles rigid.

"Danielle, I'm so sorry," he gasped.

He listened for a long time as she sobbed. It wasn't fair. All he wanted to do was let her in on the secret, but it wasn't his to tell. He had to sit back and trust Annie. Trust that she knew what she was doing and that she would return to him. He would put on any front, tell any lie, because this was all going to end up for the greater good. At least, that was the idea. And he wanted to believe.

He wondered where Annie would be by now.

Wherever it was, he hoped she was happy.


	2. Chapter 2

It was four in the morning and Auggie was still up. He was too tired to move, too tired to sleep. Lies were tiring, but there were no other options. It was Annie's decision to go dark and leave Calder and himself with her secret. If he told anyone she was alive, her safety would be enormously compromised.

It was a painful facade, faking someone else's death. The hardest part had been facing the people who thought they knew and loved Annie best. People like Joan, and Danielle and Barber, who thought themselves members of the inner circle. They believed Annie to be dead because they thought they'd be the first to know if she was faking. Auggie had been in that position before. It stung to remember that he hadn't even been in his own wife's inner circle, but now he was grateful. The inner circle was no prize.

He closed his eyes and tried to dull the ache that ran through his joints and up his spine, culminating as a headache that throbbed in his temples. The mattress, usually a welcome embrace, hurt his back. The pillow no longer retained a cool side. Rest was mocking him, an elusive siren that sent him crashing into the cliffs of insomnia.

In a few short hours, Auggie would rise again. He would put on slacks and a nice shirt, run a comb through his hair and drink a liter of coffee. He would return to the toxic pond of mourners that was the CIA, and he would pretend to mourn Annie. And yet, in a way, he wouldn't be pretending at all. Annie was still gone from his life, as she was from everyone else's. Auggie's knowledge that she still had a pulse, didn't change anything. Not really. Not if he couldn't put his hand on her side of the bed and feel her there, warm and safe beneath his fingertips.

He may have known the truth about Annie's life, but Auggie Anderson was mourning. He was mourning every second she was out of his reach, and every chance that she might never be again.


	3. Chapter 3

Joan felt ill, and the pregnancy had nothing to do with it.

Joan was in her forties, in a high-pressure job, finally pregnant after a long history of presumed infertility. The news of Annie Walker's death was exactly the sort of stressor she was supposed to be avoiding.

This was her first pregnancy. Her first child. Those close to her often cattily referred to her subordinates at the DPD as her "babies," and Joan could draw the parallels. Young operatives were crybabies. They made messes they couldn't clean up, and most of them were afraid of the dark. Joan knew everything there was to know about coaching a scared-shitless 25-year-old through their first year as an op, but she didn't know the first thing about actually raising a child.

Joan had just finished reading up on morning sickness when she learned of Annie's death. The nausea that swept over her in that moment was unlike anything she'd experienced all trimester. And now, hugging the toilet in the ladies' room, she knew that her stomach was upset about a different baby. Annie. And Auggie for that matter. As she swept her hair up into a ponytail and checked her blazer for any foul evidence, Joan caught a pang of what Arthur must be feeling, what he must have felt for months, and the guilt she felt about both Teo and Annie sent her right back into the stall.

How was Auggie going to react to this? He'd been through too much. It wasn't fair to him. Damn if that boy didn't have the worst luck. Joan imagined losing Arthur the way Auggie lost Annie, and she heaved again. It was all too much. She wished there was a way to rewind, to go back and make the right decisions now that she could see the consequences, but a career spy knew better. Mistakes were made. The only remaining direction, was forward.


End file.
